A Million Points of Light
by fireleaves
Summary: [Ficlet Collection] The night sky... billions of stars, watching down on all the worlds, even when nobody else is watching. What secrets do they hold? Read on to find out...
1. Prologue

Hey people! CS with my KH ficlet (I suppose they're too long to be drabbles) collection. That's right, after a brief respite period of being off the air, _MPOF_ is now back on the web! Also, I have decided to post Chapter 1 right along with this prologue, so that you can get right to the action, so stay tuned!

Once again, spoiler warnings to thosewho have notplayed KH2 yet. Not ALL of them will be KH2 related, but most probably will be in some manner.

_**Prologue**_

_There are… so many stars…_

Ansem the Wise looked up into the eternal midnight sky, its nocturne depths peppered liberally with a seemingly infinite amount of the little balls of gas.

Well…perhaps 'looked up' was not entirely accurate, as due to certain unfortunate incidents, Ansem found himself not merely looking _up _at the stars as if he were some denizen of one of the vast multitude of planets, but instead he was actually _among_ the stars. Though, in a sense, it didn't make much of a difference, as the stars, no matter how close they were now, they were still out of his reach. Or so Ansem thought until recently.

Indeed, though Ansem no longer had a body, he found that he could still travel with whatever sentience remained with him between all of space and through any of the stars he encountered on the way, and he could even see what lay inside of him. And what he saw surprised him.

They were memories.

Yes, each star held within its core held an important event locked within the heart of every sentient being in every one of the worlds, be they human or animal, or even Heartless or Nobody, and possibly even the world itself, memories long ago in the past, memories that are happening right then, even ones that have yet to be made.

And as if that wasn't enough, Ansem could see not only the memories themselves, but the emotions that person had concerning them. There was the serene blue of happiness, the burning red of anger, the sparkling yellow of excitement, the deep, melancholy purple of grief… and virtually every hue and pigment in between.

In a way, it was like taking a look inside that person's heart itself.

Ansem practically drooled (metaphorically) at the possibilities.

At first he tried to resist the temptation, as he felt he had no right to pry into people's thoughts and feelings, but it wasn't long before his ambitions conquered his inhibitions.

Which proved that, even in death, the thirst for knowledge could never truly be quenched.

So now Ansem stood, facing the million points of light, wondering which to start with, before deciding on the one nearest to him.

_After all,_ he thought as he began his descent, _just because my physical life is over, that doesn't mean I have to end my research._

End

---

So how'd you like it? Good? Bad? Okay but could use improvement? Just drop me a line and tell me what you think...

...for I am not but a lowly servant (raises hand in the air melodramatically), who exists only to appease you, dear reader, in any fashion you so please...

(clears throat) Now then.. on to the next preview!

Next Time: Little Kairi is overjoyed when Grandma come to visit. And she's even going to make cookies! Seriously, who can resist them? She must be like, a baked goods genius or something!

...Too bad it'll be for the very last time.

Stay tuned for Chapter 1: Grandma's Cookies!

Coming up next!


	2. Grandma's Cookies

**Chapter 1: Grandma's Cookies**

"Mm..." the little girl moaned as her eyes fluttered open.

The old woman watched patiently as her granddaughter slowly rose from her slumber. "So you finally woke up, Kairi."

The girl stopped rubbing the crust out of her eyes in surprise after hearing the voice. Apparently, she had expected to hear someone else. "Grandma? Where's Mommy and Daddy?"

The woman thought for a minute, trying to figure out what exactly to say. "Hmm... it looks like they still aren't back from work yet," she decided, was the safe answer, though it still pained her to see the crestfallen expression on Kairi's face. The little girl had obviously tried to stay up the whole night awaiting her parents' safe return, explaining her current location on the living room sofa. The woman tried not to imagine the look on her granddaughter's face if she knew she would most likely never see either of her parents again.

So she did what she could to cheer her up. "I thought you would be waking up soon," she said, taking her seat in the big rocking chair across from Kairi on the couch, "so I put some cookies in the oven for you."

And that was apparently all it took, as the previously downcast expression in the girl's eyes immediately sparkled with joy. "You're baking cookies?" Kairi bounced off the sofa and began to run to the kitchen with glee, ready to partake in the glorious delights as soon as possible.

The woman giggled at Kairi's sudden energetic outburst. "Calm down, dear. It will still be a while until they're ready to go out of the oven."

Kairi instantly deflated. The woman was honestly surprised at how quick the little girl could switch from one extreme to the other and then in such a short amount of time, no matter how many times she had seen it before. It relieved her greatly to see that she had returned to her usual, slightly hyperactive self.

"But in the meantime, how about a story?" Kairi again utilized her wide range of emotions by happily skipping back to the sofa, plopping down into it's cushions, wrapping herself into her blanket, and patiently waiting for her grandmother to begin.

"Now...which story would you like to hear?" She, of course, already knew what story she would be telling; it was, after all, the same one Kairi asked for almost every time she visited.

And sure enough, she was right. "Tell the one about the worlds, Grandma!"

She tried her best to look surprised. "That one again? I thought you would be old enough by now to be able to tell these kinds of stories to yourself!"

Kairi mock-frowned at her grandmother. "But it's so much better when _you_ tell it, Grandma! And besides, I'm only five years old!" She accentuated her point by holding up four fingers up in the air as high as her small stature would allow it.

"That's the wrong number of fingers, dear." Confused, Kairi took her hand back down to face level, carefully counted the number of digits on her hand, and finally held out the correct amount with an embarrassed smile on her face.

Nonetheless, the woman finally relented, just as she already knew she would. "Okay, fine. I'll tell you that story, then." As she briefly pondered the words to say, she suddenly stiffened as she heard a light rattling on the door. She didn't think that they would have arrived so quickly.

Swallowing away the dread welling up inside of her, she began with the story. "Long ago, all the world was connected, and a warm light covered it..." the knocking became more persistent.

"Grandma, there's someone at the door."

"I know, dear. I'm sure whoever it is can wait until I finish." Kairi gladly let the argument end right there and let her Grandmother continue with the story.

She couldn't help but to marvel at how her anxiety gradually vanished as she saw the bright, faraway look in her granddaughter's eyes as she slowly lost herself in the epic struggle between the dark and the light. It was more than fairly ironic that she came here to give Kairi solace, but it was starting to work out the other way.

By the time she finished the story, the knocking on the door became so loud the lady couldn't help but to fear they would try to force themselves in, but she nonetheless kept a cool head. "Well it looks like we've kept our guests waiting long enough..." she was interrupted as she heard a chime sound from the nearby room, "...and just in time! Kairi, why don't you go and pull the cookies out of the oven while I go get the door?"

"'Kay!" As Kairi rushed into the kitchen to retrieve the precious sweets, the woman took her time to answer the door. She knew, however, that her stalling tactics would only buy her a little more time before Kairi was on her own, but she was resolved to milk it for all it was worth.

After a painfully long walk to the door, she opened it to find more or less what she had expected to since before she even arrived at the house. She recognized them as two of the Hollow Bastion castle guard, dressed in full attire: black and gray chest and shoulder plates, armored boots that reached all the way up to the knees, and gauntlets reaching up to the elbows, and a helmet bearing the heart-shaped insignia of King Ansem (or whoever was at the throne; things had been so hectic lately it wouldn't have surprised her if the sage had been usurped right from under her nose), complete with a face guard blocking all but their eyes from exposure. On the right shoulder plate of one was a small yellow circle, while the taller guard had a black triangle within the circle, denoting a slightly higher rank.

The lower ranked guard stepped forward. "We've come for the girl."

"Oh, you mean Kairi?" She replied innocently. "What would you want to do with her?"

The guard fumed at her blatant insolence. "You know exactly what we want to do with her! Quit playing dumb!"

"Grandma, the cookies are out of the oven!" Kairi hopped from around the corner but halted as soon as she caught sight of the two guardsmen. "Ugh, you guys again?" she moaned, running a hand through her hair exasperatedly. She had obviously known the two men from her frequent visits to the castle. Then she snapped her fingers as a thought surfaced in her head. "Hey, you two just came from Ansem's castle, right? Do you know what's going on with Mommy and Daddy? They were supposed to have come back by now..."

The two guards looked nervously back and forth between each other and the little girl for a second, until the silent guard in the back finally spoke up. "...We haven't seen them around. Sorry."

The short guard attempted to clear the sudden tension by clearing his throat. "Anyway...We're here to escort you back to the research labs." The mere mention of the Hollow Bastion research labs made the young girl visibly gulp. She could hardly be blamed; if half the rumors about some of the king's assistants when they were focused on a specific goal were true (Even came to mind as one of the main offenders), it should have been counted as am admirable quality that Kairi hadn't fainted by then.

Kairi's grandmother had, of course, known the reasons behind the frequent visits to Hollow Bastion, and the secret experiments that took place inside of it. She had known why it started with every single female in town within Kairi's age group, and why the numbers slowly wilted down until it was just Kairi herself. She had known already what results the test would yield, and what would happen to her when they were finally over. She even had more than a good idea as to where she would be taken to before too long.

Unfortunately...

"No!" Kairi launched herself toward her grandmother, hiding herself behind her leg with tears of desperation beginning to well up in her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere until Mommy and Daddy are back home!"

...She also knew what had to be done.

"Now, now dear," she placed a hand on Kairi's head reassuringly. "There's no need to get all fussy, is there? These men received an order from the king to take you to the castle, and they can't just come back empty handed, right guys?"

The short guard became unsettled from the unexpected attention directed at him. "Uh! Well... yeah you're right, but..."

"And besides, you just might run into your mommy and daddy while you're there, and even if you don't, you'll probably be in and out of there in no time and they'll never know the difference."

"...A-are you sure, grandma?" She was right about at least one thing; the experiments, disturbing as they were, never took more than half an hour.

"I'm almost positive. And if you somehow miss each other and they come home, don't forget that I'll still be here to tell them what's going on."

"Grandma..."

"Those cookies should be done cooling off now. I'll go get you a bag to take on the way there." With that, she unhinged herself from Kairi's grasp and headed for the kitchen.

"Wait a minute! Grandma's baking cookies! Why didn't you let me know sooner?"

"If you were _paying attention_ you'd already know, because I said so when you came in!"

"Che, whatever kid. Who asked you anyway?"

"_You_ did!"

Kairi's grandmother couldn't help but to smile as she heard the two squabble from behind the closed door. She would have been wary of leaving Kairi alone with the two guards, but if her suspicions of the short guard were true, then she actually might have been in good hands.

Taking her attention away from the scene going on in the living room, she contemplated the batch of cookies laying on the kitchen table. The people's overjoyed expressions at hearing she was baking cookies was not an overreaction; she was without a doubt the best cookie maker in town (she had the medals to prove it, too, as she had came in first place in every single baking competition she entered in), and in this batch, she had put all of her affection, making them probably the most tasty cookies she had made in a while.

It might have been an understatement to say she may have outdone herself, for she had made use of each and every baking pan the house had and made cookies of all flavors, be they sugar, or oatmeal, or mint, or strawberry, or any other potential flavors that lay in the refrigerator.

Most abundant, however, were her two favorite flavors: Chocolate chip and toffee. The toffee had been the one she had always used in her competitions, and therefore was the flavor that everyone and _their _grandmothers loved.

Except for one...

"_Grandma?" Kairi watched as her grandmother set the batch of chocolate chip cookies on the table._

"_Yes dear?"_

"_Why don't you ever bake these cookies for your competitions?" The question had certainly been asked out of the blue; the last competition she had entered had been over six months ago. But, that's just how Kairi was sometimes, so she was hardly surprised by it._

"_Well to put it simply, I shouldn't enter chocolate chip cookies in the competitions because half of the competitors will enter it and I need to have an edge."_

"_Oh..." she replied in a thoughtful way that suggested she really didn't get it at all._

"_What's wrong," she giggled, "you don't like my toffee cookies?"_

"_No, those are good too, but chocolate chip is my absolute favorite!"  
_

_Her grandmother chuckled, taking a cookie in her hand. "You know, they're my favorite too."_

Kairi's grandmother sighed at the old memory, and then went to work. Taking out three good sized plastic bags (the guards very well might take Kairi's bag if they didn't have their own) and filled the first two up to the top with her famous cookies.

Then, before filling the third bag, she placed a single note card in the bottom. On one side was the recipe for the chocolate chip cookies, and on the other the toffee flavored. With that, she could only hope that it would somehow stay with Kairi wherever she went.

Taking the bags in her hands, and making sure she left one cookie on the table for herself, she went back in the living room to find that the two guards had made themselves at home. The short guard was casually sprawled out on the couch with his helmet taken off to reveal a poof of red hair with a long, thin ponytail (how he had managed to hide it inside his helmet no one knew) and light blue eyes, while the taller guard remained much the same, though he had taken his helmet off as well, revealing a bald head and eyes hidden by a pair of sunglasses (Had he been wearing them the whole time?).

Kairi was busying herself by reprimanding the former of the two.

"Reno, get your butt off this couch! What would Elena say if she found you here acting like a complete slob?" She smirked in a very uncharacteristic fashion; she already knew the argument was already hers.

Reno stumbled out of his previous position and glared at the little girl with more than a hint of a blush on his face. "N-none of your business kid!" He looked about ready to strangle the mischievous little girl before the other guard put a hand on his shoulder. "What do you want, Rude?"

the newly-named Rude pointed a finger towards the old lady, looking very amused at what she was seeing. "Well, here are the cookies," she said, handing two bags to Rude and Reno, making sure they weren't the ones with the recipes in it. "Now you remember to eat them while they're still hot, okay?"

"Sure, whatever," Reno said with his mouth already halfway stuffed with the sweet morsels. Rude acknowledged her request with a simple nod as he silently took his bag.

"And here are your cookies, dear." She reached down to give Kairi her bag. "Be sure you tell mommy and daddy I said hello!"

"Okay!" said Kairi as she took the bag and began to walk away.

"Well I guess we've wasted enough time here," Reno said, heading for the door. "C'mon princess, let's get out of here before I get my head chopped of by the boss!"

"Coming!" Kairi said in an annoyed tone. She took a couple of steps towards the door, then paused. Then, without warning, she turned around and flung herself into her grandmother's arms. "Bye Grandma!"

With that, Kairi sprinted to the door where the two castle guards waited for her (some more so than others), and then they walked off into the night.

Her grandmother stood in the doorway, watching her quickly retreating figure, before they took a quick left and thus completely out of her field of vision.

Sighing, she closed the door, turning around and leaning her back on it for support. Looking across the room into a nearby mirror, she found that she had unknowingly shed a single tear.

Hastily wiping it from her face, she walked over to the mirror only to catch sight of a photograph lying on a table below it.

It was Kairi and her parents, taken on their very first trip to the castle, the first day of their new jobs as mechanical engineers. Standing behind them with a good-natured hand on Kairi's head was King Ansem, along with his six assistants: Xehanort stood faithfully at his right side, while Elaeus towered over both of them to Ansem's left. Braig struck a fancy pose next to an exasperated looking Dilan, and Even and Ienzo stood off to the side looking relatively uninterested. She remembered being the one to take the picture.

It was truly a rare moment to have all seven of them around at the exact same time, the sage had said. _"So rare, in fact, it's worth having immortalized in the form of a photograph, wouldn't you say so?" _had been his exact words.

"What's happened, Ansem?" She uselessly muttered to the picture, knowing the answers would never be found there. "Why did things suddenly change like this?"

She switched her attention from the king back to the girl, who looked to be in the midst of shifting into a pose of her own, trying to emulate Braig.

"And to you, my dear granddaughter, I can only offer my deepest apologies." She began to slowly stroke the girls face in a false caress. She had long ago established the pointlessness of the situation, but she found that she had to do it simply to appease herself.

She knew it was cruel to send away a girl that age away from her home to some strange backwater world against her will in the so-called 'name of science', unbelievably so, but, even as she stood there circling the same face over and over with a trembling hand, she could feel the warning signs deep within her heart. The world was slowly succumbing to the darkness, and it was only a matter of time before it would be completely taken over.

So why not let them have their little experiment?

Why not let them take Kairi as far away from there as possible, before it was too late?

_Because..._

Her eyes snapped open. "No." the picture frame made a decisive _thud_ as she unceremoniously placed it back on the table. She had to escape that train of thought. Kairi was now effectively out of her hands, as well as the world's. She had to start working on a way to get as many other people out as soon as possible.

Before she left the living room, however, she thought back on another table, quite different than the one standing with the precious photograph on top of it. More specifically, it was the desk belonging to the king, wherever he was these days, and the file laying on top of it that she had seen on her last visit to the castle.

Within it were only two sheets of paper, each having information on two boys around Kairi's age, with names, pictures, ages, and so on and so forth.

The first boy had silver hair and calculating sea-green eyes, carrying a confident smirk and practically radiated with smugness.

The second was a rather silly-looking boy with kind, blue eyes and brown hair that seemed to go off in any which direction, giving off an air of lightheartedness.

They had been chosen as 'candidates', so to speak, the catalysts of the very experiment of which Kairi was the control.

And soon, oh so soon, they would be her future, one way or another.

"Take care of her," she whispered, after taking a moment to think of their names, "Riku, Sora. She's in your hopefully capable hands."

And with that, she left to get the last remaining cookie.

End

And there it is! Chapter one is over, and Chapter two should be up again in a week... speaking of which, let's go on to the preview!

Next Time: What am I gonna do, what am I gonna do! **It** is tomorrow and I have nothing to give! She's going to kill me when she finds out...Wait! I have an idea! Thank goodness!

...let's just hope it works.

Stay tuned for Chapter 2: Our Anniversary Present!

See you soon, and don't forget to Review...!


	3. Our Anniversary Present

Hey all! I'm back with a (late I know) brand new update...

...Okay, I know these have been posted before, and I can explain the reason that the story got removed and is now being reposted...but it's a pretty long story that basically surmounts to me being the biggest idiot in the knownuniverse.

Fortunately, this is the last of the repeats, so after this chapter, you can all look forward to (or otherwise) REALbrand new updates! (provided, of course, I don't get run into the ground by the upcoming finals)

But, enough about that! On with the story!

**Timeline:** Post-KH2; Spoilers abound!

**Chapter Two: Our Anniversary Present**

_Clang!_

_Clang!_

_Clang! Clang!_

The sanctified station rang with the echoes caused by the collisions of the weapons wielded by the two warriors.

"Gee, nice greeting _as usual!_" Sora spat out with frustration as he ducked under the first Keyblade swing, and then bringing up his own to block the second.

"Whatever!" was Roxas's curt reply as he jumped up to try to bring both of his Keyblades down on his head with an overhead swing.

It had been a ritual of sorts between the two. Whenever Sora had a problem that nobody else could really help him with, he would dive into his own heart and seek advice from his other self.

Unfortunately, that other self was almost always prepared for him, and his idea of a welcome wagon included leaving him with as many bruises as possible.

So there they stood, Roxas wielding the Oathkeeper and the Oblivion Keyblades, while Sora, ill prepared as always, only carried the basic Kingdom Key. The standoff almost made Sora forget the reason he came down in the first place.

To put it simply, it was their anniversary. In just a matter of hours, it would have been exactly ten years to the day that Sora first met Kairi, washed up on the beach, and from then on his life would change forever.

And he completely forgot. He hadn't even thought of it until just a few minutes ago, just when he was ready to go to bed. There was nothing of real value around the house (sentimental or otherwise), and all the stores were sure to be closed.

So now he had to find some way to get her a gift before the next day, and if he didn't, who knew what would happen?

Faced with this new dilemma, Roxas, the being of the other side of Sora's heart, the other part of Sora himself...

"Well, what do you want _me_ to do about it?" he asked, breaking their latest deadlock with a kick to Sora's chest.

...was being as helpful as he ever was.

"You could start by actually helping me think of something!" Sora yelled, using the momentum from the kick to flip back on his feet, the Kingdom Key humming with power as he did so. "Blizzard!" Sora's spell literally stopped Roxas in his tracks, freezing his feet to the floor, allowing Sora a moment of respite, and go up the newly appearing steps to the next platform, switching to a more suitable weapon as well, the Ultima Weapon to be exact.

As Roxas struggled to break free of his bonds, Sora took the moment to look about his surroundings, something he had never had a chance to do before. Besides the fact that all of the platforms had been replaced with stained glass portraits of himself (a fact that still disturbed him to the day; it was fine when they were only people he didn't yet know, but whenever he looked down and all he saw was himself...put him off, to say the least), everything was exactly the same as when he first dived in his hears oh so long ago. It still gave off the same feeling of serenity no matter what obstacle lay in his way, and he could still faintly hear the silent sound (if that made any sense whatsoever) of the endless choir all around him.

Why Roxas insisted that such a peaceful place would make for a wonderful battleground, remained a complete mystery to Sora.

Speaking of which, it appeared that Roxas had finally escaped his icy shackles, as he had decided to forgo the stairs in favor of simply Super Jumping up to the next platform. "Okay, so remind me again why I should help a lovesick moron like you!" Roxas renewed his assault, hammering both Keyblades down on Sora's guard, trying to break it.

"_Because,_" Sora reasoned, spinning himself around Roxas's attack and trying to counter by swinging at his unguarded back. "As you may have realized, I am you, and you are me, and both of us are part of the same being."

"Yeah, so?" Roxas jumped over the swing and seemed to hang profoundly in the air.

"And I'm pretty sure the exact same thing applies to Kairi and Namine as well, and I'm sure that she'll be just as happy about the whole thing as Kairi will be, _fellow_ lovesick moron." Sora finished, settling out of his combat stance just as Roxas began his descent, on a crash course heading straight for him.

Roxas blinked as Sora's figure rapidly approached. "...You've got a point there."

The next thing Roxas remembered was being blown back by a rather large burst of energy. After that, it was him being pummeled by an attack so fast and coming from so many directions it was utterly impossible to keep track of them. After that, he was laying in the middle of the platform (Not even the platform he was on previously, but the one they had started fighting on) with Sora slowly floating towards him.

"I just realized something," Roxas mumbled, just loud enough for Sora to hear him, "Using Drives is _totally_ unfair. Your party isn't even on the same _planet_ as you anymore, let alone by your side!"

Sora chuckled as he phased out of his Final Form, offering his other self a hand. "This is a dream world, after all. And maybe you shouldn't be trying to fight me all the time anyway."

Roxas reluctantly took his hand, dusting off his white clothes as he did so. "Well, somebody around here has to get you in shape! Lord knows how much time you've wasted goofing around in the real world!"

Sora quizzically rose an eyebrow. "So you're saying that if I do a little more training while I'm awake, you won't assault me anymore when I try to go to sleep?"

Roxas innocently pondered his statement. "I'll think about it."

Sora sighed; he knew that would be all he could get from him. Then he paused, as he felt his surrounding suddenly shift, as they slowly transformed into an infinitely more familiar locale to the Keyblade bearer: his bedroom. Unfortunately, he knew that this meant that he would soon be awake, and then he was on his own. "So are you going to help me or not?"

Roxas thought for a long moment. "I'd like to help you," he started, Sora rolling his eyes at his sudden change of heart, "But I honestly can't think of anything that could be of any use..." he turned away from the crestfallen Keyblade master to ponder some more... and consequently fell flat on his face.

"Ow! What the..." Roxas felt his eyebrow twitch as he found the offending object. "I'll tell you what, I bet that if you cleaned some of this mess up you could find _gold_ in here!"

Now, Roxas wouldn't describe himself as being a 'clean freak' (one need only look at his old room in Twilight Town for an example), but he supposed he had gotten used to the stark _blankness_ that embodied the Organization XIII fortress, where no one had any personal belongings besides their weapons and the bare essentials for living (after all, they were _nobodies_). So used to it, in fact, that when he saw the utter pigsty that was Sora's room, it actually offended him. And when Roxas takes offense to something...

But Sora was almost too distracted by his current situation to pay any attention to Roxas. Almost.

"Hmm? What's wrong?" That proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

"What's wrong? I'll tell you what's wrong! You keep way too much stuff here, that's what's wrong!" Roxas motioned around the various items from Sora's journey that lay strewn across his current living quarters. "I mean, keeping a Potion or an Elixir is one thing because you never know when you might need it, but..." he reached for the item he tripped over, "Why the _hell_ could you need to be doing with a Dense Gem? For goodness sake, what's it good for besides being _hard_?"

Growling one last time, Roxas flung the synthesis item at Sora with all his strength, striking him right on the head and reeling him right out of his deep meditation.

"Wha-ow!" Sora yelled as he finally opened his eyes, jerking back and hitting the back of his head on the wall as he did so.

"Wait, that's it! I know what to do!" Sora jumped up and yipped in joy, but then immediately had to sit back down as the pain throbbed in his head. After he got it down to a dull ache, he got up and decided to actually listen to Roxas's instructions for the first time in his life.

"Okay, now how am I gonna do this?" Sora now stood at the beach with his various synthesis materials lying in front of him, the pale moonlight providing his only source of light.

He silently thought back to what a moogle once told him about high grade item synthesis, and how it was a lot like cooking: anyone could just mash together a bunch of rare minerals and come out with something looking half-decent. Quality items, however, required a sense of subtlety, as well as a good balance between the ingredients.

"Subtle. Sure, I can do subtle." Sora tried to make himself believe that as he began picking out items for synthesis. He wanted something magically balanced, so he picked out a group of elemental items: three blazing stones, frost stones, and lightning stones each. Phase One complete.

"Okay, that's it for the subtle portion. Now for the balance part!" Sora pondered over the exact meaning of 'balance' before he ultimately attempted to describe it via the cooking metaphor: he simply had to start with a strong primary 'flavor', then adding weaker 'flavors' that serve to accentuate the primary one without overpowering it.

Now with a game plan in mind, Sora turned back to the pile of ingredients to continue his work.

Easier said than done.

After another minute of frustrated head-scratching, Sora finally picked out two items for his primary flavors, a Mythril Crystal and a Lucid Crystal. After that, it didn't take much longer to find good secondary ingredients, those being a Twilight Gem and a suspicious-looking Dense Gem. Throw in an Orichalcum for good measure (because Orichalcum, much like hot sauce, had a tendency to make _anything_ better than it already was), and Phase Two was complete.

Now that he had all of the main ingredients picked out, Sora was left to contemplate 'garnishes', the finishing touches that just made it all the better. Fortunately for the Keyblade master, this was _much_ easier to pull off, as it didn't require a terrible amount of thought. He simply picked out a Serenity Crystal that would hopefully improve the final product, as well as an Energy Crystal that would even more hopefully help with the actual process of the synthesis. And just like that, Phase Three was complete.

_'Speaking of which...'_ thought Sora as he realized that that was the very last thing he had left to do, and it just might have proven to be the most difficult of all.

Just like the gathering of the ingredients, the process of synthesis was much like cooking, in that just how the method of cooking food greatly affects its overall outcome (baking it, frying it, boiling it, steaming it, etc.), the same applied to synthesis.

Fortunately, Sora already had all that figured out. Since he was thinking of something magic-oriented, he surmised that he could just combine the ingredients together with magic, and it would achieve the desired result.

So, Summoning the Ultima Weapon, Sora took aim and unleashed the very first spell that came up in his head that could possibly bring them together. "Magnet!" Sora watched on nervously but then gave out a silent cheer as the precious minerals were soon sucked into the prism of pure magnetic energy.

The cheer was short lived, however, as he soon found out that although they were indeed locked tight within the magic, hardly anything else was even happening. Never one to be easily discouraged, Sora simply opted to up the ante. "_Magnet_!" he put even more of his power into the blast, keeping it focused on the target until his MP reserves ran completely dry. "Whew!" Sora wiped the beads of sweat from his face before admiring his handiwork.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much to admire about it, as instead of forming into something looking even halfway functional, it was simply a mass of half-fused minerals, with pieces of somethings-or-other jutting out of random places. It obviously had a lot more work to be done before it was ready for anything.

Sora could only sigh exhaustedly. It was a good thing he stocked up on Ethers...

Riku, for the umpteenth time that night, irritably rolled over in his bed. Blindly reaching behind to grab his bedside clock, he peeked from under the pillow to find out what time it was.

**2:37 A.M.**

Internally cursing his restlessness, Riku threw the covers from himself and sat up in his bed. For some reason he just couldn't put his finger on, ever since earlier that night, he was feeling really uneasy about something, and it was starting to drive him absolutely crazy.

Finding nothing else particularly interesting to do, Riku happened to look outside his window, silently marveling at the full moon...

...and that's when he felt it.

"What the..." It wasn't anything big, not by a long shot; in fact, if he hadn't been so utterly bored, he probably would never have noticed it.

But he was bored, and so he did notice how his hair, ever so slightly, shuffled forward, as if being blown by a soft breeze, except all the windows in the house were closed shut, he was sure of it. Furthermore, the hair kept on going in the same direction facing the window, almost as if it was being attracted by something out there...

Taking a small risk, Riku opened up the window...and then he saw it as well.

Way over on the playground island, just within Riku's field of vision, a huge prism made of pure magic was radiating enough power to supply the entire town (though admittedly, it wouldn't have taken an extravagant amount in the first place).

Riku gritted his teeth at this revelation. What was happening? Was someone trying to invade Destiny Islands? If so, the ability to cause that much of a power surge just by entering was certainly no joke.

His mind made up, Riku summoned his Keyblade, the Road to Dawn glinting in the silvery luster of the moonlight. "Well, if this guy wants to do whatever he wants on _my_ home, he'll have to go through me!"

With that, he jumped out of his window and headed for his raft, setting sail and sneaking around the back of the island. Once he hit shore, he quickly ran over to the other side of the beach, hiding in the tree house to get a good vantage point on the target.

And for a while... nothing happened. Sure, the prism was still there, and it was still giving off a ridiculous amount of energy, but Riku couldn't see anything past that, not even the person causing it.

After a few minutes, however, the prism finally started to dissipate, and Riku could see a lone figure emerge from the light.

Riku calmed his mind and prepared himself for battle. Then, once he finished setting himself up, he leaped from the tree house window to begin his surprise attack.

"AHHHH!" Okay, it wasn't much of a surprise attack, but it didn't really matter, as by this point Riku had gotten much too close to the mysterious intruder for him to be able to mount much of an offense. Yelling his battle cry, Riku began to strike with his Keyblade as he closed in on his target...

"Whoa! Wait Riku, it's me!" ...and stopped his swing as it came mere centimeters from his skull.

"Sora? What the hell is going on out here?"

the younger Keyblade master only chuckled nervously. "Well... it's kind of a long story..."

So Sora told Riku the whole story so far, from him forgetting his and Kairi's anniversary, to his conversation with his other self, and then finally to his coming to this other island in a desperate attempt to make things right.

"I see..." Riku pondered this new information, walking over to and picking up the item that Sora had spent so much precious time working on. The multitude of synthesis ingredients had at last came together, and had shaped into a ball about the size of his fist. Though it appeared black at first, he noted that holding it in the light gave it a prismatic sheen. He could tell it was already a nice piece of work as it was.

He looked up from the trinket in alarm as Sora suddenly stuck his Keyblade in the sand so he could heavily lean on it, sweat practically coming off his face in waves. "But Sora, don't you know how dangerous this is? I'm not exactly an expert on the subject, but I do know that moogles have to use high-tech welding equipment for even simple accessories. To try to synthesize something with magic power alone, even for a Keyblade master, is downright suicidal!"

Sora panted for a few more seconds, took a deep breath, and stood back up, once again concentrating on his magical power, leaving Riku ultimately unsure as to whether or not his waring fell on deaf ears. Only then, however, did Riku notice the pile of empty bottles laying at the younger Keybearer's feet. Riku silently counted them up; One...two...three...four...

"Twelve!" he exclaimed, shocking Sora out of his concentration. "You used up twelve ethers already? How long have you been going at this?"

Sora exhaustedly looked up at the night sky, trying to think of the answer. "Uhh...I don't know, what time is it?"

That was the last straw. Riku put the trinket back down on the sand and walked over to Sora's side. Once again he summoned forth his Keyblade, and he pointed it down where it lied. "Come on, we're finishing this together."

Riku's simple statement shocked Sora right out of his exhausted state. "It's okay Riku, I can handle this..."

"Bullshit," Riku spat. "Don't forget that you and Kairi are my friends too. And how can I possibly call myself the same if I just leave you here to kill yourself? So you can either shut up and let me help you finish this thing, or you're not finishing it at all."

And just like that, the argument was over. Sora slowly nodded his head in understanding, bringing up his Keyblade parallel to Riku's. The two mystical weapons hummed with power, and a minute later they sky was once again lit up with magic.

Because she was bonded with her Nobody, Kairi was allowed special techniques much like Sora had, namely the ability to dive in her heart in a meditative state, and actually communicate with her other self.

Of course, what Sora and his other self did inside his heart was worlds different from what Kairi and _her _other self did.

And at that moment, the two personalities were partaking in one of their most favorite activities: quietly drinking tea, with Kairi reading a magazine on one side of the table, Namine drawing in her notebook on the other.

Kairi smiled as she savored the taste of Namine's new creation (Earl Grey, she called it). For the past couple of months, she had been trying to find a hobby for the diffident girl to enjoy besides just drawing (improving though she may have been), and eventually she found that she was practically a natural at brewing the hot beverage, and it even gave her an excuse decorate the formerly pure white room with a multitude of tea trees.

"So what are you drawing over there?" Kairi asked, trying to look over from the other side of the table.

"Just a sunset."

"Oh? Are you missing your old home?"

Namine giggled, switching an orange pastel for a red one (yes, she had finally upgraded from just using crayons). "Just a little nostalgic, that's all."

They shared a laugh and went back to business, Kairi turning the page of her magazine and Namine carefully adding the red pastel to her portrait.

They remained like that for a moment before Namine spoke up. "There's a slight disturbance in the magical force somewhere around here." It was sort of a technical term among magic users that basically meant that someone, somewhere on the planet was using magic, and a lot of it, a phenomenon that normally can't be sensed unless one is in a deep meditative state like Kairi was.

Kairi rolled her eyes. "Those boys. What time is it?"

"It's got to be around four in the morning."

Kairi shook her head. "Honestly, you can't get them to wake up in the morning, and yet they still feel the need to roughhouse with each other at every random hour in the night!"

"Should we wake up and try to stop them?"

"No. Knowing them, they'll just wear themselves out before anything dangerous happens." Kairi took another sip of her cup of tea to make her point. "This is really good, Namine. Do you think I can have the recipe?"

"Certainly."

The two boys sat panting in the sand, staring incredulously at the creation they just completed.

Riku looked back up at the other Keyblade master, pointing an exhausted thumb over in its direction. "Was _that_ what you were going for this entire time?"

Sora only laughed, fatigued eyes dancing in mirth. "Not at all. It's even better than what I had in mind."

Riku laughed right along with him. "I guess you _do_ have a future in this after all."

"Please, Riku. If you think I'm going to try something like that ever again, you're even crazier than I am!"

"Hey!" Riku looked up at the sky, just barely able to see the sun starting to appear over the horizon. Kairi would be up soon. "Shall I go along with the Final Phase?"

Sora laid back down in the sand. "You may."

And so Riku got up and prepared his raft, leaving Sora to his machinations.

Just a few minutes later, Riku was back on the main island, watching Kairi's house from the safety of a tree across the street, and with the aid of high-powered binoculars. It would now just be a matter of time...

Now rest assured, stalking women early in the morning on top of a tree was not exactly Riku's _modus_ _operandi_, to say the very least, but he knew how important the day was for his two best friends, so he had to do his best to make it a memorable occasion for both of them.

There! Riku grinned in triumph as the front door of the house opened at last, Kairi appearing from behind it with a yawn and a stretch. Riku knew that she liked to go out for a quick jog early in the morning (having caught her in the middle of it on the rare occasions he woke up in the morning), so it was the perfect opportunity for him to make his move.

Quickly climbing down the tree and stuffing the binoculars in his vest pocket, Riku walked as casually as possible down the road where he soon crossed with Kairi's path. "Good morning, Kairi!" he cheerfully greeted her.

Kairi, however, didn't seem very pleased, crossing her arms and giving him a frown. "Okay Riku, what happened?"

Riku mentally flinched. _'Okay, maybe that was a little bit too cheerful.'_ "What do you mean?"

"Don't give me that, Riku. I felt the magical disturbance just a couple of hours ago. You and Sora were out playing with something again, weren't you?"

_'So she felt it too, as I feared...'_ "I have no idea what you're talking about." Riku said lamely, then decided to change the subject. "Say, were you going to go to the playground today? There's some business to take care of."

Kairi didn't look convinced in the least at Riku's declaration, but she seemed to let it slide for the moment. "Um... yeah. We need to go right now?"

Riku nodded. "You go on ahead, I'll catch up later, alright?"

"S-sure."

Kairi couldn't help but to be a little exited at the news of something that had to be 'taken care of', even if it was probably due to something idiotic the boys were doing, as she suspected. Of course, she was glad that she was back home, and she was even happier that her best friends were back home with her, but to be perfectly honest, the normal life bored the hell out of her. She had been so used to the adventure and danger of facing the Organization XIII that being a simple schoolgirl was just not doing it for her, and she longed to once again be part of the action.

She put her musing aside as she neared the infamous playground island, only mildly surprised to see a boat already docked. This only helped to strengthen her suspicions; if Riku _and_ Sora were both awake at this hour, something had to have come down between them. After docking her own boat, Kairi jumped onto the beach and located Sora just...sitting by the shore, his back turned to her.

"Sora!" He didn't respond. Now concerned for him, Kairi ran towards him in a dead sprint until soon she was standing right behind his still-motionless body. "S-Sora?" her concern instantly washed away when she finally noticed his calm, even breathing.

Her relief, however, soon gave way to anger. "Okay Sora, the gig's up! Tell me what happened last night, I mean it!"

The only response she got, though, was Sora's body slowly leaning back as if he were about to fall. Using surprisingly quick reflexes, she caught him with his head now in her lap. "Sora!" Kairi was again silenced as she saw Sora's trademark silly grin, and an object now dangling in her face. "What's this?"

Sora's smile never left his face. "Happy anniversary, Kairi!"

"Anniversary...?" Kairi gasped as she suddenly noticed the spot they were in. It was the exact spot when...

"_Hey!"_

_The little girl painfully opened her eyes, unprepared for the sudden outburst of light, and gagged at the unexpected taste of salt water in her mouth._

"_Hey! Are you okay?"_

_The girl tentatively looked up, still not used to the sun just yet, at first seeing nothing but a mass of brown hair on top of a outline of a head. As the fogginess in her mind cleared up, however, she soon could clearly see the boy calling out to her, as well as his slightly goofy smile..._

"Oh, Sora!" Sora was caught completely off-guard for the second time that morning, except instead of a Keyblade rapidly approaching his skull, it was the all-too welcome of Kairi's arms around him in a joyful embrace.

After a few minutes, however... "Uh, Kairi? I can't breath." he managed to choke out.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Kairi released her death grip on him and separated. "So, what exactly is this, anyway?" she said, holding up the small black object now in her hands.

Sora smiled once again, summoning his Keyblade in its Kingdom Key form. "What's it look like?" he innocently replied.

Kairi gasped. "You mean...?"

"Yep, you now have your very own key chain, handmade by yours truly...and Riku helped a little too."

"Oh, so _this_ is what you two were doing last night." Kairi said in acknowledgment.

"I guess so." Sora then stuck his Keyblade in the sand, using it to get himself up. "Okay, try it out! I want to see what it looks like!"

"Um...okay! Let's see if I know how to do this." Kairi got up herself, concentrating on the object in front of her, as it finally disappeared in a flash of light. A moment later, her new Keyblade finally appeared. The handle and the main part were both colored a dark gray, and the hand guard was dazzling with color, changing as it moved in the light, and it seemed to shoot out and surround the long staff, until it jutted out from the head, creating a spectacular star burst effect, completing its key shape.

"Wow! I-it's gorgeous..." Stuttered Kairi.

"I'm glad you like it."

"I love it! Thank you so much, Sora!" Kairi exclaimed, engulfing Sora in another hug (though a smaller, lighter one).

And meanwhile, two blond-haired figures watched from nearby.

Namine looked over at Roxas expectantly. "So what'd _you_ get me?"

Roxas looked over at the witch with a blank look on his face. "Huh?"

Namine snorted in a somewhat uncharacteristic fashion and stormed away from him. "I don't believe you..."

"W-wait!" Roxas ran after her. "Namine, it's not even our anniversary!"

End

Next Time: As a wise narrator might have put it, if modernization is the heart of Organization XIII, then its members are the liver and gall bladder. So what happens to these all-important parts of the whole when chaos ensues during a slow day at the office?

Stay tuned for Chapter 3: Friday, to find out!


	4. Friday

'Sup, everybody? Good news! After, what, 3-4 months on the theoretical DL, CS is finally back with an all-new story! Also, special thanks to Ri2; you're the best!

Nothing else to say really, so let's get to reading!

**Timeline:** Chronologically, I suppose this takes place between the events between Hollow Bastion (KH1) and CoM; however, there are spoilers ahead for the identities of Organization XIII.

**Chapter 3: Friday**

As soon as he got up that morning, Saix of Organization XIII had a feeling that the rest of the day would be pretty bad before he even looked up at the calender.

When he finally did look at the calender, however, he was certain the day would be complete hell.

Friday.

He barely suppressed a shiver.

Friday, much to the Luna Diviner's bafflement, was the day that some of the less serious members of the Organization chose to let loose with their 'creativity'. Namely in the form of idiotic jokes. However, that alone was not the reason that reading the calender could have such an effect on him. For an explanation of that, one would have to look at the individual members that made up what he liked to call, 'the other half'.

Okay, Saix can admit that he could have a bit of a temper sometimes, to say the least. Most of the time, however, he can proudly say that he can look past the obvious faults that are carried by half of his comrades and emerge at the end of the day with a somewhat even temperature.

Though Larxene had let her sadistic nature get in the way of her objectives more than a few times, she was actually pretty harmless if left alone, or better yet, ignored altogether; the same could also be said for Demyx and his penchant for singing original songs that sound as if he made everything up on the spot (though he claimed to have spent hours thinking of them). Luxord was slightly different in that he actually did things for the sole purpose of making everybody around him angry, but in the end his antics would be considered few and far between. While that was _not_ the case with Xigbar and Xaldin, they were deemed bearable when their unpredictable and spontaneous natures actually made them valuable teammates on the field (not to mention the fact that as both of them are his superiors, there was not much he could do about it anyway).

Then there was Axel.

Due to the fact that they are essentially empty husks with neither a heart nor a capacity for feeling emotions, one would think it impossible for a Nobody to hate, especially for no apparent reason. But it was true. It would not be an exaggeration at all to say the Saix..._hated_...Axel. And worse yet, no matter how much he searched, he could not find a single good reason that he did. Maybe it was his hair that stood out from his peers. Perhaps something had happened between them in their original lives. Whatever it was, all it surmounted to was Saix hating Axel's guts, and that was that.

Growling in frustration, Saix turned away from the calender and began his descent into the Proof of Existence, pausing along the way as he walked past a neat stack of papers set up close to the portal. Then his eyebrow twitched as he remembered what he had put them there for. That day also happened to be the day that the Organization held their bi-monthly meeting, in which the members would discuss the general state of affairs in the World That Never Was, such as any sightings of new Heartless types, behavioral patterns of the Nobodies that work under them, activity in the worlds around them, and so on and so forth. Though he could see how it would be deemed necessary by the Superior, even Saix had to admit that he found the entire ordeal to be extremely tedious.

He was now beyond a shadow of a doubt that things would only go down from that point on.

Grabbing the stack of papers, Saix drew in a deep breath and steeled himself as he crossed into the portal to prepare himself for what he would find...

"Good morning Saix! Up bright and early as usual, huh?"

"Number VIII," Saix responded curtly as Axel emerged from his own portal in the Proof of Existence. "You're looking...chipper today."

The Flurry of Dancing Flames looked up at him with a wolfish grin on his face. "I don't know...I just have a feeling that today is going to be a good day." With that, he stepped off his platform and sauntered out into the Hall of Empty Melodies.

Saix's heated glare was interrupted as another portal opened right in front of him. "XIII? Is something the matter?" He raised an eyebrow as the newest member of the Organization stepped from his portal fully cloaked and tried to sneak into the next room.

Roxas froze immediately after hearing his codename called out to him. "Saix! Uh...No! N-nothing's wrong!"

"What are you trying to hide under your hood?" Saix was becoming gradually more suspicious of his behavior.

"Me? Hide something? Don't be ridiculous!" Roxas giggled nervously.

Saix stepped forward, walking up until he was eye-to-eye with the dual-Keyblade bearer. "Let. Me. See." His words had such a tone of finality to them that Roxas found himself without another choice but to throw back his hood and reveal what laid inside.

Saix had expected to see the same bed headed young boy that he saw every day since he joined the Organization. That was definitely not the case. Roxas's normal disheveled hairstyle had transfigured into smooth golden locks that flowed majestically over the right side of his face.

"What the!" He was so shocked that he actually had to take a step back. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Roxas responded, quickly pulling his hood back on, "But if I find out who's responsible...and, if you don't mind, could you leave this between you and me?"

"...Sure." At Saix's promise, the Key of Destiny purposefully took his leave from the Proof of Existence just as another familiar face entered.

"S-Man! How's it hanging?" Demyx strutted past Saix and opened the portal to the platform right next to where he was standing—the platform belonging to Larxene, the Savage Nymph, to be precise.

"IX," Saix put a hand to his forehead, "What do you think you're doing?"

"I _think-_" Demyx put a long drawl on the second word, "-that I'm about to get lucky!" He reached into his coat pocket, retrieving a small piece of paper, reading over it silently. "I got this _wonderful_ letter last night, signed by her and everything! I didn't even know her joints could bend that way!" Putting away the note, he stretched out his hand, conjuring his trademark blue sitar. "Now all I have to do is serenade her with this song I stayed up all night composing, and the rest...will be history."

Saix stared unblinkingly (needless to say, he was beyond used to the Melodious Nocturne's behavior). "I'd really advise you not to do that." He simply said.

"Don't worry about it," Demyx replied, leaning on his sitar for support, "Because I just happen to be an expert at wooing the ladies."

"Very well. Then before you die," Saix sighed, "Would you be so kind as to inform Larxene that we have a meeting today? If I'm not mistaken, she's the only one who is not up right now."

"Will do, boss man!" Demyx wasted no further time to jump in the portal, and possibly for the very last time. Saix suddenly felt the urge to move as far away from the terminal as he could.

The horrified scream coming from the Hall of Empty Melodies gave him the perfect excuse to do so.

"Okay, what's all the racket about?" Saix walked down to the ground floor of the Hall of Empty Melodies, which had been temporarily renovated to include a table for the purpose of the meeting, with a calmness that belied the inferno blazing raging in his head. Roxas and Axel, the only other current occupants of the room who sat near the other end of the table, simply gave him blank stares and shrugged.

"I believe this is what you're looking for." He looked up at the other side of the room to see Number III in the Organization, Xaldin the Whirlwind Lancer, slowly float to the ground, carrying in his arms the unconscious body of Number IV, Vexen. "It appears that he fainted."

"And why, pray tell, has IV fainted?" Saix began to rub his temples as the Chilly Academic was dropped unceremoniously in the chair closest to him, Xaldin sitting across.

"I'd say because of this." Both Saix and Xaldin jumped as Number II, Xigbar the Freeshooter, made his appearance in his usual fashion: from absolutely nowhere. But as they were beyond used to such an occurrence, that was not the particular reason that caused them to flinch; rather, it was the mess that he had dumped all over the table that did it for them. Sticking out from the bag of fresh organic fertilizer (high grade, judging from the smell of it) rested a limp withered little thing that could only be described as having seen better days.

It took Saix nearly a full minute of staring at the catastrophe with a pinched nose before requesting a proper explanation. Apparently, Vexen had gotten a hold of a rare heartless specimen (a Heartless flower, which somehow was not to be confused with a Flower Heartless, as they were completely different entities), and had been holding it in a state of carefully regulated suspended animation to perform rigorous experiments for the past month and a half.

And last night, someone stuffed it in a bag of manure.

"A plant, put in fertilizer..." Roxas mulled over the facts from inside his hood. "You don't think...?"

The four other conscious members of the Organization shared a brief look before simultaneously proclaiming, "Marluxia."

"Actually, I find that unlikely." A path from the Corridors of Darkness opened to reveal none other than Lexaeus, Number V. Saix actually began to wonder why people were suddenly appearing out of nowhere before he remembered the fact that there was _supposed_ to be a business meeting taking place.

"So what makes you say that?"

"Two reasons." The Silent Hero replied, fully stepping out of the dark portal, revealing the motionless form of Number XI, Marluxia himself, slung over his shoulder. "This is one," he began, wisely dropping him in a chair a safe distance from the Chilly Academic, "And here is the other." reaching back in the Corridor of Darkness, he pulled out from it what seemed like an oversized ice cube until one looked closer, uncovering the delicate form of a good sized flower, one that was undoubtedly cared for for many hours at a time by none other than the Graceful Assassin. "I found it in the fridge."

Xaldin quickly put two and two together. "So someone set both of them up so that they would automatically accuse each other...?"

Saix was about to comment on the obvious fact of it being the sick joke of someone around them, when he was interrupted by yet another unmanly scream, one quite a bit closer, as well as quite a bit more familiar. "IX. I didn't think he would actually go through with it, but on the other hand it doesn't particularly surprise me." The door to the Proof of Existence opened to reveal that it was indeed Demyx on the other side, though he was kept in tow by Number XII herself, Larxene, via a chain around his neck made completely out of electricity.

With a tug of her makeshift leash, the Savage Nymph skipped down to the ground floor of the room. "Sorry I'm late, boss!" she apologized with a particularly bright countenance. "I totally forgot that today was the big meeting, and...well, you know how I am in the morning. Right, boy?" she addressed Demyx, whose only response was a feeble whimper that Saix would have found disturbing had he not heard it often from the Melodious Nocturne whenever he was with her.

"Whatever," the Luna Diviner sighed, "Just take a seat. Perhaps we can finally get this meeting underway when IV and XI wake up."

"Sure thing." Larxene smiled, then pinched her nose in disgust. "Ugh! What's that horrible smell!"

"That would be fertilizer," Saix said as evenly as he could manage, which at this point, wasn't very. "Number II, would you be so kind as to put this stuff back where you found it?" He indicated with his free hand at the bag of manure, as well as the ice-encased flower. "And do something about the ice cube while you're at it." Xigbar gave a mock salute, and he and the sabotaged flora were gone in a puff of smoke.

With that, Larxene bounded over to the other end of the table and took a seat next to Axel, Demyx sitting on her other side with the curt command, 'Sit boy!', much to the amusement of admittedly every conscious person in the room. For those trying to keep track of the seating arrangements, on one side of the table were, from left to right: Axel, Larxene, Demyx, Vexen, and Saix; on the other side were Roxas, Marluxia, Lexaeus, and Xaldin. Empty seats were left between Demyx and Vexen, and Lexaeus and Xaldin, as well as the other seat next to Xaldin previously occupied by Xigbar, and the seat at the front reserved for the Superior, who still had yet to make an appearance.

Speaking of which... "It looks like most of us are here," Saix stated, "Aside from the Superior, the only people missing seem to be Luxord and..."

He was yet again interrupted, this time by the sound of a door slamming shut, caused by the not-so-grand appearance of the Cloaked Schemer, Zexion, looking extremely ticked off, and for good reason as well; the brilliant luster and sheen that made up his normal hairstyle was long gone, replaced by thick, tousled locks which could have quite easily passed for an extreme case of bed head, had the blue light on his terminal not indicated that he had been in active condition for at least the past hour.

"My goodness! What happened to you?" Xaldin exclaimed incredulously.

"Hair gel...so hard to manage..." Zexion muttered almost inaudibly; judging from the faraway look in his eyes, it could have been safely inferred that the Cloaked Schemer was not all there. "I need...my hair gel..."

"Hair gel? I don't suppose you mean _this_ hair gel, do you?" Seven pairs of eyes turned to the direction of the voice, then they rolled as a flying deck of cards came into view, parting to unveil the Gambler of Fate, Luxord, holding in his hands a seemingly innocent looking silver bottle.

The glossy look in Zexion's eyes faded as he finally came into focus, a ravenous glint taking its place. "My hair gel...give me _back...MY HAIR GEL!_"

Luxord was obviously taken aback by his sudden outburst, but he kept his ground. "If you want it so badly," he started, the playing cards swirling back to life around him, "Come and get it!" The cards ceased their spinning and converged at the Gambler of Fate, causing him to disappear without a trace.

Zexion said nothing. He just opened his own path through the Corridors of Darkness and stepped through, leaving the rest of group in utter silence.

Silence that lasted for only about another few seconds, because at that moment, Xigbar made his grand return, holding something...peculiar.

"Hey look at what I found, Xaldin!" The Freeshooter held up his new item, which happened to be an electric razor. "Now we can do something about those dreadlocks of yours!" He turned the contraption on, holding it precariously close to the Whirlwind Lancer.

"Get that thing away from me," Xaldin said with rapidly deteriorating calmness.

"Hold still, man! You're just going to make it harder on yourself...!" Despite Xaldin's obvious objections, Xigbar continued to wave the clippers around, looking for the opportunity to strike, when...

_BZZT!_

Until tragedy struck.

The two Nobodies seemed to be frozen in time, their faces a mix of utter surprise and stark horror, as the hair clippers remained seemingly glued to the side of the Whirlwind Lancer's face, and small wisps of black hair slowly fluttered to the ground.

Until Xaldin finally spoke.

"My mutton chops..." It was only a slow whisper, but they still carried enough force behind them to convey his emotions fully into the ear of Xaldin, shocking him into dropping the clippers, revealing a rather sizable patch of smooth skin on his left cheek right in the heart of his prized sideburns.

"Whoa! Xaldin, I am so sorry..." But it was too late. With a light gust of wind, six spears appeared around Xaldin, taking three in each hand. Xigbar took that as his cue to run.

"AHHHH!" With a feral roar, Xaldin took off, chasing the daunted Free shooter in a never ending circle around the table, Saix sitting at the end with an expression on his face showing he was considerably less than amused by his comrades' behavior.

"Great...what could possibly go wrong now?" Saix found himself mumbling. He soon regretted it.

For as soon as the words escaped his lips, two pairs of eyes snapped open, miraculously (if one could believe these events to be an act of a higher deity) at the same time, their gazes wandering about the room for only a moment before focusing on each other.

And in that moment, time stood still.

Then it burst back into action, as Marluxia drew his scythe and leaped towards Vexen, even as the Chilly Academic took out his shield and allowed the very air around him to drop a considerable amount of degrees.

"Wait!" Roxas, dead tired of the random fights breaking out, drew his own weapons out, the Oathkeeper and Oblivion Keyblades locking themselves safely around the pink blade and deflecting Marluxia's crazed assault, while Lexaeus used his large stature to his advantage and wrapped his arms sternly around Vexen from behind, effectively cutting off the smaller man's concentration.

"NO!" Marluxia howled, struggling to get break out of Roxas's forced stalemate. "I HAVE TO AVENGE BETTY!" Roxas would have laughed in Marluxia's face for his strange obsession with naming his plants, but he figured it was better not to rile him up any more than he already was.

Meanwhile, Lexaeus was trying his best to calm down Vexen. "Stop this, Vexen! It's all a mistake!"

"You're damn right it's a mistake!" thundered the Chilly Academic. "I never should have allowed hippies like him to enter the Organization in the first place!"

Regaining some of his lost focus, Vexen finally let loose a single blot of ice albeit it was a poorly aimed one, veering off to the side and heading on a crash course for none other than Larxene.

"Whoa!" She only allowed herself a small scream of surprise as the frigid bolt of focused rage came to her...

...and with the simple tug of a leash, Demyx became her involuntary human shield, catching the blast in its entirety and turning into a well-groomed Popsicle before he even had the chance to yelp in protest.

Larxene took a moment to look up and down at her now-frozen comrade. "Hm. I wonder if we can keep him like this." And in her quiet musing in addition to the chaos around her, she failed to notice the note that fell from Demyx's coat just before getting frozen, skidding to a stop at the feet of Saix.

Who had basically been since the moment Vexen and Marluxia finally woke up slowly counting backwards from ten with his eyes closed, trying to drown out the sounds of battle around him. He was now at five.

Four...

SNIKT!

"_That wasn't the sound of Xaldin impaling a chair with his spear."_

Three...

CRASH!

"_That wasn't Roxas flying through a plate glass window."_

Two...

BOOM!

"_That certainly wasn't Lexaeus using his ground attack on the floor I just had waxed."_

One...

Silence.

Saix cautiously opened a single eye to see what had caused the lull in chaos.

Luxord slowly crawled across the floor, nervously looking around left and right looking for any signs of the lunatic after his skin. His normally neat hair was now a tangled mess, and his coat was halfway torn to shreds, even though he miraculously managed to keep safely by his side the single bottle of hair gel that the whole thing was about.

But what really got the Luna Diviner's attention was the oversized playing card that the Gambler of Fate had attached to his back. Apparently, he thought that it made for good camouflage, even though it really didn't; in fact, it was only edged out by the time Xaldin tried to sneak in the Beast's castle by putting a lamp shade over his head as the most idiotic disguise that Saix had ever seen in his life.

He was going to hate himself for even asking. "Luxord, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Shh!" Luxord immediately put a finger to his lips, becoming even more frantic in his searching back and forth. "He's still looking for me! I can't let him find me!"

"...Right. Before I let you go, let me ask you something: how did you get your hands on Zexion's heir gel?"

"I just woke up this morning, and there it was right in front of me! There was even a note saying 'You know what to do,' and so I did!"

Saix narrowed his eyes. "Let me see the note." Luxord was certainly not in any condition to refuse. After taking the small piece of paper, he couldn't help but to ask. "By the way...why go so far over some foolish prank?"

Despite his fidgety semblance, Luxord managed a smile. "I'm a prankster. It's what I do."

Of course, his smile immediately vanished as the Corridors of Darkness opened up right in front of him. With a yelp, he got up and tried to run away, but he failed to notice the other portal opening right behind him, from which Zexion flew and tackled the Gambler of Fate into the then-vacant portal, both of them disappearing as they went inside. The rest of the Organization silently watched the whole thing, and in on later than ten seconds, they went right back to enveloping themselves in endless chaos, as if nothing had ever happened.

Saix paid them no mind, instead focusing all his attention on the piece of paper before him. He could now catch whoever it was that was behind the whole thing.

Unfortunately, it didn't leave many clues. All it read was _"Zexion's hair gel. You know what to do."_

Saix sighed. There wasn't really any evidence that he could pull out of just reading the note, and even if he could try to use forensic evidence the day would almost certainly be long over by the time anything came up.

But still, something was...off. It felt like he was missing something, something big that would blow the whole case out of the water.

And just by chance, he looked down at his feet and finally found the letter that fell from Demyx's pocket shortly before his downfall. Curious, he picked it up and skimmed through the slightly longer (and more sickening; "I didn't know joints could bend like that," Saix muttered to himself in disgust) letter...and his eyes narrowed.

Somewhere, in a land far, far away, a little yellow bar reach all the way to the top.

Saix looked up with anger at the carnage around him. "THAT'S ENOUGH!" Summoning his claymore, Saix slammed his weapon down on the table, sending a huge shockwave across the entire room. And that was just the beginning, not that Saix could remember anything that happened after that.

When he came to, the room, as what could have been predicted, was in shambles. The table was completely demolished as was the chairs, and there was wreckage lying all around. Nearly all of the Organization was out cold as a result of his berserk state, with the exception of one man...and it just happened to be the one that Saix was looking for.

A somewhat uncharacteristic grin broke out on his face. "Axel. I need to have a word with you."

Peeling himself from his spot in the wall with a crash, Axel wearily looked up at him. "Something wrong, Chief?"

Saix roughly pulled him up on his feet by his collar. "You can drop the charade, VIII. I know you were behind everything."

Despite his predicament, Axel grinned at him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Saix's grin vanished. "I thought I just told you to quit playing stupid. _You_ stole Zexion's hair gel, _you_ set up Demyx as well as Vexen and Marluxia, and you even provided Xigbar with the means to pull that prank on Xaldin!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on!" Axel held up his arms to get a safe distance from Saix, who had been inching closer and closer to him as he went on until he was a little too close for comfort. "How did I have anything to do with the clippers? Xigbar went by himself to put all that stuff away, and I was here with the rest of you the whole time until he came back with him."

"Maybe so, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he found them while he was gone. I specifically told him to put the sabotaged items back where they were found, which would be the Research Lab and the freezer, neither of which are anywhere near your living quarters, and I sincerely doubt that anything belonging to you would be over there either."

Axel frowned. "Why are you so sure that the clippers belong to me?"

"Simple." Saix walked over to where Xigbar had dropped them, where they miraculously survived Saix's temporary loss of sanity. He plucked a single hair and showed it to Axel. It was bright red.

Axel gulped. "That could be anybody's hair!"

"Axel, you're the only redhead on the ENTIRE PLANET." Saix pointed out.

"But the drapes don't match the carpet."

Saix almost threw up right then and there; that was _way_ more than he wanted to know. "That's beside the point. Even if you did dye your hair the way it is (which I sincerely doubt, by the way), you're still the only one who could have left this hair on these clippers.

Axel sighed in defeat. "Okay, fine, I gave them to Xigbar, but I really didn't have anything to do with what happened. He asked for them, as a matter of fact!"

"...Fine," growled Saix, "I'm willing to accept that."

"Good. Now kindly explain to me how I had _anything_ to do with Zexion losing his hair gel to Luxord and Roxas's new haircut?"

Saix raised an eyebrow. "I didn't say anything about Roxas, and he's had his face hidden in his cloak this entire time." He pointed over to his unconscious body, revealing that he somehow managed to keep his cloak on even after being attacked by psycho-mode Saix.

Beads of sweat began to appear on Axel's face. "W-well...see...w-w-what happened...w-was..."

Saix mentally smirked. He had him right where he wanted him. "Well, since you insist that you didn't do anything to him, I wonder how you knew about him?" he asked innocently, turning around and putting a hand to his chin in mock-thought.

Axel blinked. "What?"

Saix continued. "Now let's see. If Roxas didn't reveal himself today, that could only mean that he had done so last night. And maybe you went to see him last night..."

Axel narrowed his eyes. "What are you trying to say?"

But Saix ignored him, slamming a fist in his pal, as if coming to a revelation. "I've got it! It all makes sense now!" He turned around again to face Axel, his face kept carefully neutral, but still kept a rare mischievous leer in his eyes as he spoke to him. "VIII, I had no idea things were like that between you two." He held his hands up in the air in self-defense. "Not that I'm saying that there's anything wrong with that. I understand that you're just living an 'alternative lifestyle', and I respect your decision."

It seemed that Axel finally put two and two together, judging from his gaping mouth and overall outraged expression. "W-WAIT A MINUTE! I think you've made some kind of mis—"

"Wait until the Berserkers hear about this! You'll be hearing from them for months to come!"

"OKAY, OKAY, I DID IT!" Axel yelled, downright desperate to make Saix stop with his crazy accusations. "I went in Zexion's room and took his hair gel. Then I went in Roxas's room and used some of it on him!" Then he hastily added, "And that's all that happened in there! Are you happy?"

"Very."Saix cleared his throat. That worked better than he expected. "Now, are you ready to confess your involvement in what happened with Romeo and Juliet over there?" he asked, pointing over to Larxene and Demyx, who had finally been broken out of his icy prison, though he was soaking wet.

Axel crossed his arms and looked in the other direction. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh? Then maybe this will jog your memory." Saix shoved a piece of paper in his face.

"It's a letter to Demyx." Axel said flatly, before reading it through. "Hey, I didn't know joints could bend like that!"

"Me either." Saix agreed, but went back to the subject at hand. "Anyway, you are correct, it is a letter to Demyx, more specifically the letter supposedly given to him by Larxene, which led to...well, you know." He half-explained, not quite able to put into words exactly what happened between them. "You see anything familiar about it?"

Axel looked at the message again with a raised eyebrow. "Look, I don't know what kind of stuff you think I'm into, but _this_ is a little..."

"Not about what it describes!" Saix snapped, "I'm talking about the message itself."

Axel blinked again. "Should I?"

"How about the fact that it's in your _handwriting_?" Saix almost yelled at him; he wanted to wait until Axel was proven completely guilty before he went berserk again.

"Oh _please_," chuckled Axel, "What's so different about my handwriting that it stands out from everybody else's?"

Saix's eyebrow twitched. "Perhaps that one trait that both you and the person that wrote this note, as well as the person that wrote the note to Luxord have in common: you all dot your i's with little chakrams!" He pointed to a particular word with an "i" that he was only marginally surprised that Axel even knew; sure enough, the way that the letter was dotted made it completely identical to Axel's own weapon (an action, Saix later mused, that had to have taken an almost superhuman amount of dexterity to perform).

Axel looked at the paper a third time...and grew a nervous grin that somewhat reminded him of a certain cat he saw one time at a particular world.

"That's what I thought." Saix tucked the note away. "So are you going to confess about the incidents with Vexen and Marluxia, or am I going to have to strangle that out of you as well?"

"Okay, wait. I confess to what happened with Larxene, Demyx, Zexion, Luxord, and Roxas, and that I even had some small part in that thing with Xaldin and Xigbar, but I'll tell you right now that I had absolutely _nothing _to do with those two, and I really mean it this time. I know the odds are stacked against me, but you're just going to have to believe me on this." Axel explained.

Saix frowned. While some very small part of him believed what Axel said, all the other parts were laughing at him just for saying 'believe me'. "How do you honestly expect me to believe you when you've already pulled your asinine jokes on nearly the entire Organization? If you didn't, who the hell did?"

"I have no idea." Axel rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I _did_ have another prank planned, but it had nothing to do with this one, and now that I think about it, I doubt it will even work."

Saix stared. With the exception of Lexaeus and himself, everybody in the room had become victims to Axel's stupid pranks. That left only one unpranked Organization member that was still unaccounted for... "Axel...tell me you didn't."

Axel found that he didn't have to answer him at all, because as the words left Saix's mouth, the door to the Proof of Existence opened, and Saix could only stare agape at what walked through. "S-Superior?"

Xemnas, to say the least, looked to have seen better days. His was made to look like a clown, complete with a wig and face paint (though, upon closer inspection, it actually proved to be flour, two black eyes, and a rather serious looking allergic reaction). His coat was peppered all over with what appeared to be paint gun ammo, with the back of the coat completely torn off to reveal a rendering of Auguste Rodin's (whoever that was) Gates of hell, done with exceptional detail, especially for it having been done in paint. His right arm appeared to have been dipped into wet cement and allowed to dry, while his left sleeve was ripped off to make way for a large tattoo which read "I heart Johny". And to top it all off, it appeared that some sorts of whoopee cushions were glued to the bottom of both his feet, which made the trademark fart noise whenever he took a step.

Xemnas calmly stepped through the door, paying no mind to the faux flatulence as he surveyed the damage around him, from the demolished table and multiple craters on the floor, to the scattered remains of Organization XIII as they finally began to wake up. "I forgot today was Friday." He simply said.

"So..." Saix tried to make it seem as if nothing was wrong. Perhaps the Superior had not even realized what happened to him yet. "...About the meeting..."

"I've decided to postpone the meeting until next week." Xemnas did an abrupt about-face, resulting in a rather long raspberry emitting from his feet. "Saix, come with me. I need your help with something." With that, Xemnas walked back to his quarters, leaving rapid fart noises in his wake.

"...I can't believe that trap door actually worked on him." Axel muttered to himself, leaving Saix utterly speechless as he got up and followed after the Superior.

Lexaeus shoved a large piece of rubble from under him and Vexen as they finally got up. "I'd say, under the circumstances, today went pretty well."

"I agree. At least I finally gave that hippie what he had coming to him." Vexen sneered, dusting himself off as he prepared to retreat to the lab, Lexaeus performing a double take after him.

And then, roughly a minute later the Corridors of Darkness opened once again, dropping the body of Luxord before a reinvigorated Zexion stepped through, his hair finally back to normal, as he looked around him.

"Did I miss something?"

End

---

Next Time: If you thought that all the adventures Sora and the gang went through made it into the game, then allow me to prove you wrong. Journey, dear readers, into worlds and situations which our esteemed Keybearer and his friends have tried their hardest to make sure that they never see the light of day again. What will be your first journey to the unknown?

Stay tuned to Chapter 4: Locked in the Vault, to find out!


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